Dangerous Liaisons by T. C. Archer

after the Army, so when he offered me training, more education, and an opportunity to make a difference defending the U.S., I said yes.”
    Jesse flexed her leg to test the bandage. Good and tight. He would have made a good veterinarian. She remembered Lancelot, and blurted, “How did Rayburn take Lancelot’s death?”
    A muscle pulsed in Cole’s jaw and her heart constricted.
    “Pretty hard. Lance was only seven. I told Charlie he died a true hero.”
    Jesse started to say the dog’s death wasn’t his fault, then stopped. Maybe Cole had nothing to do with Colombia.  Maybe he merely considered himself duty bound to bring in a traitor. But the hundred thousand dollars he had accepted from Lanton said he might have helped send Green Team to their deaths. So why did every square inch of her body scream to be touched by this man who might be a killer?

Chapter Eighteen
     
    A tingle raced up Jesse’s thigh when Cole’s fingers flexed against her ankle. He shifted her leg. She tensed, uncomfortably aware of the warm hands and gentle pressure against her skin.
    “That hurts,” she said. “Just wrap up the bandage.”
    He looked up, hurt in his eyes. “It’s going to scar. You should get it restitched.”
    “Won’t be the only scar I have.”
    “Stop being stubborn. I’ll be done in a minute, then you can go back to hating me.” He ripped open another box of gauze, withdrew the roll, and continued wrapping her leg.
    “So tell me how the diner wasn’t a setup,” she said.
    “Like I said, Jess, they found you when I found you. We simply hadn’t shaken them. How much did you hear?”
    Her heart sped up. This was damage control. “I heard you're getting a lot of money to hand me over to Lanton.”
    A corner of his mouth lifted. “A hundred thousand for my trouble.”
    “You haven’t seen trouble yet.”
    The smile lifted the other side of his mouth. “You’re a handful.”
    “You’ll never get the money now.”
    “I never said I wanted it.”
    “You didn’t refuse it.”
    He paused and looked at her. “No one owns me, any more than they own you. He wants me to get a confession out of you.”
    “By any means necessary,” she said.
    Cole nodded, then ripped a foot-long strip of tape. “That’s not OIA style. If he was working within the organization, he would have attempted to bring you in. There’s no doubt he’s working on his own. What have you got that has him so scared?”
    Cole wrapped the tape around her leg, pressing and massaging the bandage snug. She tried to ignore the play of shoulder muscles against shirt-fabric. Her belly did a flip. Damn him. She pulled her leg from his hands. Cole placed the medical supplies on the desk. Jesse grabbed her pants and slipped them on.
    When she stood in front of him, fully clothed, she said, “Lanton’s been dirty a long time.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Ask Tom about Madrid. Then check out Hong Kong—” the laptop emitted a high-pitched beep. “What the—” Jesse opened the laptop lid.
    An error dialogue box filled the middle of the screen. At a glance, she saw the transfer of funds from the third account into the fourth had been interrupted. She closed out the dialogue box by selecting ‘Retry.’ The progress bar appeared and the cursor became a spinning hourglass. The progress bar began filling left to right. At the halfway point, everything froze, including the hourglass. She pressed the escape key, but the computer didn’t respond.
    Cole stepped up beside her. “What happened?”
    “Don’t act innocent,” she snarled. “Acting as if you let me have the hundred grand. You couldn’t stand for those kids to benefit.”
    “What kids?”
    “Stay back,” Jesse warned as she typed furiously to tear down the connection and start from scratch. “You’d better hope I can get the connection back because, if I can’t, I’m taking the funds out of your ass.”
    Cole leaned forward and Jesse whirled. He leaped. She fisted